October 3, 2009

Maison Martin Margiela is a generally pretentious label. This is usually easy to forgive-and even love-because for a while, the collections were so great they made up for this. They made you think about clothes, fashion, people, among other things. Margiela was once the believer's way of converting fashion grumps and getting them to appreciate the art of clothes. Now, we don't even know who is designing the clothes. I'm hoping it's not The Martin himself, because it's a lot easier to be disappointed in a team of people I don't know than a man I'm obsessed with, and whose work I've admired so greatly since I got interested in fashion. Now, the pretension of the label-the mysterious invites, the fact that nobody outside the house knows what goes on inside-is harder to like. This season the label showed pieces that I think are supposed to be so ironic that we're supposed to think that there must be some genius Margiela-esque concept behind them, but the end result is just tacky. How else do you explain those terrible Copacabana prints? Ironic, sure, but why? Those prints-and most of the collection-are for the "high fashion" hipster. It's as if whoever designed it all thought, okay, as long as there's big shoulders, stuff looks really deconstructed and folded, and something so bad it's good, maybe I/we can pull it off. I'm not one of those sourpusses that thinks clothing always has to have a meaning, but the collection isn't even visually appealing. Not nice on the eyes, and no thought behind it, so what's the point? Maybe this is just a "we'll be right back" collection, and things will get back on awesome, minimalistic track soon. I sure hope so.

EDIT: It IS a new design team. Well. That's gross. It's like Diesel adopted Margiela's baby and made it ugly and wear tacky clothes.

dudes I feel like such a grump, 2 eh reviews in a row! positivity soon*I don't get it either. Seriously, the book I have from his MoMu exhibition calls it that. Quite the puzzle!